Thursday, December 21, 2006

Ways To Utilize a Burqa...

This story stood out because since 9/11 my mom has held fast to the belief that Osama Bin Laden is strolling around Pakistan in a Burqa...even though I've told her he's pretty tall and probably wouldn't pass as a woman... But this story definitely illustrates one of the more nefarious uses of a head to toe covering.

"...A man who was being hunted for the murder of a policewoman is understood to have escaped from Britain by disguising himself as a veiled Muslim woman.

Mustaf Jama, a prime suspect in the fatal shooting of PC Sharon Beshenivsky, assumed his sister’s identity — wearing the niqab and using her passport — to evade supposedly stringent checks at Heathrow, according to police sources.

The use of the niqab, which leaves only a narrow slit for the eyes, highlights flaws in British airport security. At the time, Jama was Britain’s most wanted man, while Heathrow was on a heightened state of alert after the 7/7 terrorist atrocities in London five months previously.

The Times has learnt that British immigration officers rarely carry out a visual check to match a passport photograph with a departing female passenger’s veiled face..." (source)

So, in a post 9/11 world we are willing to let cop-killers escape rather than offend someone and ruffle some feathers... Do you feel safer than you did five years ago? NO.